Any suggestions? We want this forum to be totally inclusive for all members - how should it be structured?
Elsewhere, General Discussion is where most of the action takes place, the subforums tend to be neglected.
How do you see it being structured?
All ideas welcomed.
This thread could be deleted once we've got a working model in place.

Regarding sub forums, I wonder if we even need them? At RI everything pretty much happens in general discussion. If we do, I'd suggest keep to minimum, ie, gen discc, lounge, data dump. We already know the sort of people we hope to bring here and what we'll be discussing, mas o menos.

a General Discussion and a Data Dump is the quickest and simplest way to go for me

I probably would just like to maintain a distinction between discussion / conversational posts from those that really don't require any sort of response but are probably just cut & pastes you just want to save for posterity / future reference & to build over time into an archive - in some ways the distinction really boils down to is it your own words - what you wrote - or something someone else wrote ?

( maybe keep your own posts to links with selective quotes rather than massive cut-pastes ) - although this then risks ending up with dead links ofcourse

and for God's sake can people NOT use the QUOTE function to repeat a massive 3 foot long post and go "I agree" at the bottom - really grinds my gears

in reply to C-D's kindly PM of welcome ( as I need to get my post count up quickly ) can I go on record here to acknowledge him & gururilla for their initiative and work - I don't know how this is going to work out but if pushed at this preliminary stage I suppose I see this place as possibly functioning as some sort of unofficial chill out room ( complete with cushions, whale sounds and the odd strange unidentified but probably human figure slumped in the corner ) adjunct to the noisy head banging rave on RI - lets see anyway

I probably would just like to maintain a distinction between discussion / conversational posts from those that really don't require any sort of response but are probably just cut & pastes you just want to save for posterity / future reference & to build over time into an archive - in some ways the distinction really boils down to is it your own words - what you wrote - or something someone else wrote ?

Yeah, this is a conundrum, right? I find some/many copy and pastes interesting, but I find the fellow member's response to those pastes as far more interesting. This is, after all, how conversations begin - and new perspectives emerge.

( maybe keep your own posts to links with selective quotes rather than massive cut-pastes ) - although this then risks ending up with dead links ofcourse

Yep, dead links to an article (having been discussed or referred to) without the article having being pasted somewhere on this site is a problem.

and for God's sake can people NOT use the QUOTE function to repeat a massive 3 foot long post and go "I agree" at the bottom - really grinds my gears

Mine too.

Any blindingly good suggestions welcomed re pasting etc, otherwise we'll take it as it comes and institute a workaround if things get out of hand.

Maybe the Data Dump should be literally a place where only copy and pasted articles/links go and if any member wishes to discuss a specific data Dump post they bring it General Discussion.

I suppose I see this place as possibly functioning as some sort of unofficial chill out room ( complete with cushions, whale sounds and the odd strange unidentified but probably human figure slumped in the corner)